The smallpox epidemic that virtually wiped out the natives in their own land was asdisastrous as perhaps any epidemic that has ever existed in human history. While AIDS is doing enormous damage and harm to the people of Africa, it is not suffering from a population implosion. In fact, the population of Africa is increasing at an enormous rate, and many parts of the continent are actually thriving. The disease epidemic of smallpox, however, did not allow such mercy on the earliest inhabitants of the Americas.